2,000 employees of stricken hospital reconnect

Jun. 15, 2011

Written by

News-Leader

More than 100 employees from the St. John's hospital in Joplin lost their homes in the tornado. Some of them hadn't seen each other since the storm.

About 2,000 employees came together Sunday at the Downstream Casino Resort near Joplin for a gathering that included renderings of what a new hospital might look like and a biblical reading.

"Even though some have been working in the field hospital and some have been working at other places, we haven't had a chance to get together," hospital President Gary Pulsipher said Tuesday.

There were prayers, a promise by Mercy President/CEO Lynn Britton to continue paying the 2,200 employees and some remarks by the governor.

"This service is a reaffirmation of the bonds of faith that have held the Mercy community -- and the Joplin community -- together for more than 125 years," Gov. Jay Nixon said, according to his office. "The fact that this extraordinary reunion is taking place at all -- in the last place anyone would ever expect to find Sisters of Mercy on a Sunday afternoon -- is proof that those bonds of faith are stronger than any tornado."

The hospital payroll is about $10 million a month. Pulsipher said part of the cost is covered by business interruption insurance. The company is also helping its employees -- or "co-workers" in Mercy parlance -- with damage losses that aren't covered by insurance.

"We're all in this together," Pulsipher said. "Mercy believes we're all created in the image of God."

Mercy has built a field hospital and hopes to replace it in six months with a more permanent hospital that is built off-site and trucked in. Plans call for breaking ground on a new hospital in early January that would be complete in about 2 1/2 years.

Pulsipher said no hospital employees died in the storm.

"When I pulled up to that building and saw the devastation, I thought there would be multiple deaths," Pulsipher said. "It was a miracle that our co-workers survived."

Six people at the hospital -- five patients and a visitor -- did die in the tornado.

The gathering concluded with a reading from a Scripture from John 15. A Bible in the hospital chapel was found blown open to that page.